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Friday, 5 February 2016

Rotwater Blight Game 5: Orcs vs Dwarfs

Old
adversaries meet once more to settle grudges and avenge ancient
wrongs. The Final game of Throne of skulls and the mission is War of
Storms against a force of Dwarfs. We have to kill the general and
hope the winds of fate blow in our favour.

The
Mission

War of
Storms is an odd mission, at the beginning of each round we roll off
and who ever wins expand their territory. The only other way to
expand your territory is to wound your opponents general. Who ever
has the larger territory at the end of the game (6 turns) or is one
territory is the whole table that player wins.

The
Armies

Orcs

Grimgor
Ironhide

17 black
orcs – full command

Orc
Bigboss – Waaaagh banner

Savage
Orc shaman

Orc
Warboss on Wyvern (General)

Orc great
shaman

Orc great
shaman

20 Orc
boys – full command

Giant

Doom
diver

Rock
lobber

Orc Bully

Dwarfs

Ungrim
Ironfist (General)

Joseph
Bugman

12
Individual Dragon slayers

3
Engineers

3
Runelords

20
Quarrellers

3
Gyrocopters

3 Grudge
throwers

3 Giants

I have
more models than the Dwarfs but he out guns me and out monsters me.
This will be a hard game.

Deployment

We roll
to see who deploys first, and I win, so select the dwarfs to set up
first, and in this mission he sets up everything in one go. He sets
up his Grudge throwers supported by the runeslords and engineers. The
Quarrellers set up in front of them, with the gyrocopters in the
woods to the right of them. Bugman and Ungrim set up in the woods as
well. 2 Giants set up in the front and the 3rd gets to set
up in a wood after me because he won his previous game. The dragon
slayers set up all around his forces.

My
deployment has the black orcs in the forest with Grimgor. The boyz
set up just outside the forest next to the black orcs and the warboss
with banner hold back. At the back of the forest the wyvern deploys
to get the extra save, and the shamans deploy around the orcs. On my
left the artillery deploy with the bully. In front of them the giant
and trolls deploy.

With the
dwarfs setting up first, the get to go first.

The
Battle

Turn 1 –
Dwarf priority

Hero
phase and the runelords add rending to the grudge throwers. Ungrim
inspires the Quarrellers.

Movement
has the slayers all moving towards the orc lines as do the Giants.
The giant behind my lines in the woods moves toward my general,
aiming to take him out. Down my right flank the gyrocopters move down
ready to try and disrupt my lines.

Shooting
from the gyrocopters targets the savage orc shaman and deal 3 wounds
to him. All of the grudge throwers target the Wyvern aiming to get an
early lead turn 1, they all hit but thanks to positioning in the
woods I save some, taking 9 wounds, still alive on 1. The ranger
target grimgor, and after 2 volleys deal 3 wounds to him.

Combat is
simple, the giant at the rear charges the wyvern, and at the front
one charges Grimgor. The 3rd giant attempts to charge my
giant, but he rolls a double, tripping and falling on two slayers
dealing 3 and 2 mortal wounds to them. A few slayers manage to charge
in as well.

First the
giant swings at the wyvern killing it with ease. Grimgor strikes next
dealing 8 wounds to him with his axe. A slayer attacks Grimgor back
and only manages a single wound. As the giant is so close to the orc
boyz they get pulled into combat and deal 1 more wound to the giant.
Before he dies the giant attacks grimgor but he only deal a single
wound, leaving with 2. The black orcs attack all around as they are
close to all the combats, they deal 5 wounds to the giant that killed
the general, 1 wound to the slayer next to grimgor and 4 to the other
slayer by the savage orc.

Battleshock,
and with my general dyeing the line is pushed back 18 inches towards
my deployment.

Orc turn
1

With my
general dead I only have magic, the savage orc shamans casts shield
on the black orcs, and the other shamans cast it on the orc boyz and
stone trolls.

The giant
and trolls move towards his giant on my left flank.

Shooting
and I try to even things up, both the Doom diver and Rock lobber
target his General Ungrim Ironfist. Both hit and both wound killing
him in a single turn.

Charges
and my giant charges into his, and the trolls back him up by charging
the slayers next to it.

First my
Giant attacks first, swinging his club he deals 2 wounds to his
giant. Unfortunately next his giant kills Grimgor, to which my black
orcs swing back into action and kill a slayer and reduce the other
giant to 3 wounds. A slayer goes next attacking the trolls, and kill
1, the trolls kill off 2 more but they attack back before they die
killing 1 more. Orcs attack next and reduce the giant who killed
Grimgor down to 1 wound.

Battleshock
and the trolls run for it. The battle line moves back 18 towards the
centre of the table.

Turn 2 –
Orcs steal Priority

Again the
shamans cast mystic shield on the black orcs and orc boys.

Both the
rock lobber and doom diver target the quarrellers but they do no
damage.

Straight
to combat and my giant wings first killing his with a mighty
headbutt! Unfortunately the giant staggers and falls on mine causing
2 mortal wounds. His giant in the woods attacks next against the
black orcs killing 4 of them. The black orcs attack back killing a
slayer and reduce the giant ahead of them to 1 wound and the one
behind to 2. The other giant attacks the black orcs killing 1 more.
Boyz attack next killing the giant on 1 wound, and he falls on the
black orcs killing 1 more. The slayer next to black orc fail all of
hit, but they a slayer attacks the giant and deals 8 wounds.

Battle
shock and the black orcs all run apart from 3, who stays to fight the
slayer next to him.

Dwarf
Turn

This turn
the Runelords add rending, one to the Quarrellers, the rest on two
grudethrowers.

With the
orcs possibly getting out of combat soon, the quarrellers move back
away from the orcs. The rest of the slayers move towards the orc
lines getting ready to charge.

Shooting
from 2 grudge throwers targets the artillery killing the crew on both
machines. The 3rd targets my giant killing him, but he
falls onto the slayer who dealt damage to him killing him. With the
extra rending the quarrellers target the orcs and bring down 11 of
them.

Combat
has the slayers charge into the orc lines, killing all but 1 orc and
finishing off the black orcs. His giant charges the orc with banner
but fortunately doesn't kill him.

Battle
shock and the remaining orc runs.

Turn 3 –
Orc Priority

All of my
shamans attempt to arcane bolt the remaining giant but fail to kill
him.

The bully
moves away from his lines as I need him to live.

In combat
I lose every one who's in combat.

Dwarf
turn

The
slayers get close to the shamans.

Grudge
throwers target the bully killing him and the slayers charge the
shamans killing them.

At this
point I have no models left and lose the game.

Dwarf
Victory

Post-Battle

This game
was rather one sided I feel, I just didn't have enough to deal with 3
giants, 3 grudge throwers and 12 slayer characters. If his giant
didn't have the ability to set up behind my lines I might have been
able to deal with it a little bit better. My black orcs were
definitely the unit that I needed to do the heavy lifting this game,
and being pulled in 3 different directions really didn't help them.

A few
things that I took from getting my ass handed to me are that I needed
a fast unit to get into my opponents face and distract them. Maybe a
large number of Boar boyz or a couple of chariots might make the cut.
Thinking about it while I'm typing this a unit of 3 Boar chariots
would really help, they are fast, have a relatively large number of
attacks considering they are a single model. They might do some extra
mortal wounds on the charge which is another bonus... I will be
repainting my chariots soon.

Anyway
this was my hardest game to play, seeing his force my heart just
wasn't in it. I'm not going to say that his force was over powered or
out of the spirit of the game as that's just pathetic. But after
talking to him it was obvious that we came from two very different
backgrounds with the game. His game group plays much more seriously,
using the most powerful units in order to murder their opponents,
and they enjoy that, which is great. But my group go for theme, using
more themed lists which aren't always the most powerful, and that's
just how we do it. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but
when two groups like that meet, it never ends well.

Anyway I
enjoyed the weekend on a whole and I would go again after waiting a
while. I couldn't do this on a regular basis but maybe in a couple of
months I would do back again. But it would depend on the theme, I
liked Rotwater Blight, it was a cool idea but the next one is Trials
of Archaon which doesn't appeal to me very much.

Having
the only limiting factor in the games being number of models didn't
quite work, as some people only took basic troops, other saw no point
in this so only took elite units then other just said bollocks to it
and took half a force of characters. I was amazed no one went full
monsters, a few people had a couple (mainly the Seraphon) but it was
nothing dramatic. Still some sort of other balance has to be used.
How to balance it, I really have no clue, as I only can come up with
using percentages for characters and monsters. Say a max of 10% Heros
and 10% monsters, so out of 60 models you could have 6 heros, 6
monsters, then 48 models of anything else. Still 6 monsters is ALOT
of monsters, so maybe 5%? I really don't know. I just hope GW can
come up with something instead of just leaving it as model count.

This is
my last post on the Throne of Skulls event, and I hope you all
enjoyed it. It will be back to 40k for a little while, I need to
paint up some more Renegades, then hopefully I will still have a few
Age of Sigmar posts.